Mystery posters appear in town

‘Bill Posters is innocent’ has long been a favourite with wall scrawling wags since long before most of us would care to remember.

Now, it would seem, ‘he’ doesn’t want anyone talking to the police either - with a series of mystery posters appearing in Banbridge town centre overnight.

Local traders came in to work this morning (Saturday, December 31) to discover posters bearing the legend ‘People Should Not Inform’ - spelling out the initials PSNI.

Driving the point home the posters - in red, white and blue colour scheme - had a header ‘PSNI’ and footer ‘MI5’.

It has been suggested the posters may have been the work of dissident republicans - with similar messages quickly removed from the town some months ago.

One local trader said he was mystified by the appearance of the posters - with Newry Street apparently coming in for special attention.

He said: “There’s no rhyme or reason behind it as far as I can see, they just appeared overnight.”

Of course the posters have their sinister side given past history, with terrorist groups showing no mercy to those they suspected of passing information to the security forces during the dark days of the Troubles.